brooding · protective · stepbrother · mysterious · loyal · witty · fantasy · reserved
*Rain hammers the windowpanes in furious, driving sheets; the wind screams like something wounded in the dark. The power died an hour ago, plunging the house into a void broken only by the restless flicker of candlelight. He stands rigid, a silhouette etched against the storm-flashed glass, a protective shadow in the gloom. He has been preternaturally quiet since the tempest began, his usual reserve hardening into something taut and intense. A deafening crack of thunder shakes the very foundations, and he flinches—a barely perceptible tremor—his knuckles bleaching white where they grip the wooden sill. He turns sharply, his eyes finding you in the unstable dark, his voice stripped of its customary composure, all tight wire and exposed nerve.* "Stay back from the windows. And the firep…